Real estate agents and brokers commonly use a brochure box to dispense brochures having information and pictures relating to a home for sale. The brochure box is usually fastened to a sign that is proximate to the home and conveniently accessible to interested individuals. Brochures are manually supplied to the brochure box and individuals are able to access and review the brochures and the information contained thereon. Due to the general popularity of brochures, it is not uncommon for individuals to quickly empty the brochure box. Accordingly, the real estate agent or broker must resupply the brochures when they are exhausted. However, providing the additional supply of brochures is often not performed expeditiously, thereby resulting in frustration to the home seller and even missed sales opportunities.
The primary impediment to promptly refilling the brochure box is lack of knowledge as to when the brochures are depleted. Currently, the only way to know when additional brochures are needed is through a visual inspection of the brochure box. Because the real estate agent or broker works remotely and only sporadically visits the home, expedient visual inspections are not always possible. Thus, when the brochure box is emptied, it usually remains that way until the next visit from the real estate agent.
There have been significant advances in the field of sensors and wireless technology. For example, inexpensive sensors are currently available to capture data on illumination, displacement, position, temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. Sensor examples include Besharat (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2005/0037815) and Chan (U.S. Pat. No. 7,292,875). Once obtained, this information can be instantly processed and wirelessly communicated to a remote location. Wireless communication examples include Ara (U.S. Patent Pub. 2007/0281758); Nakajima (U.S. Pat. No. 7,147,161); and Allyn (U.S. Pat. No. 7,187,936). Although sensors and wireless technology are widely available, they have not yet been utilized to address the aforementioned problems relating to empty brochure boxes.
Accordingly, although desirable results have been achieved, there exists much room for improvement. What is needed then are systems and methods for systems and methods for wirelessly monitoring a brochure box.